When my father--the smart, strong, mostly silent type--got diagnosed with a brain tumor a few months after his 56th birthday, I figured we'd ended up with the worst Christmas present ever. Instead, he and my infant son taught me the most important Christmas lesson of all.

An inspirational tale originally published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book.

One belly dancing class.

Every Monday, on penalty of death or cheesecake.

Kate Zhao, the corporate lawyer, worries mostly about her billable hours and Asian no-ass syndrome...until she gets bushwhacked by a friend request on Facebook. Her best friend/first lover dumped her at age 17, but now that he's all grown up, he wants to make it up to her.

Hailey St. Laurent, the über-mother of an infant girl, barely makes time for their belly dancing class, until she figures out that she loves it more than her husband.

Gavriella Schumacher, the sassy Jewish engineer, picks up a guy who turns down the fornication. Is he crazy, or does she smell that bad?

Dancing Through the Chaos.
Sex. City. And a little bit of rhythm.

When Melanie's mother dumps her at the Little Flower Preparatory College for Girls, Melanie can handle the uniforms and the 6 a.m. wake-up calls. But when the nuns' discipline turns savage and Melanie discovers that the parents have essentially abandoned them, Melanie must save herself and her best friend, even if it means consorting with a vampire.

Jenny died of anorexia, but she didn't stay dead.
She's back and she's warning the world about her deadly disease.
Josh, the media-savvy reporter, helps her get the message out...and falls in love with her drive, her sass, and funny little streaks of innocence.
Can Jenny save the world from anorexia?
Can Josh save her from herself?

Jimmy can talk to animals. No big deal, probably part of his Mohawk heritage. He's been doing it for the past six years, and now he's just another 14-year-old too smart for school, a.k.a. jail.

But one day, Coyote tells him, "You have to go to school." She won't take no for an answer. "There's going to be trouble."

Turns out a bully's slashing his way through a hit list, starting with one of the vice principals, and closing in on Jimmy himself at number four.

Now Jimmy's got to protect them all--with some help from the birds and the beasts.

When a tyrant overtakes her space colony, Emma Lo strikes back with her art.

She employs nanotechnology to transform her nearly century-old body so that she may play Othello in a desperate bid to satirize and overthrow the President—until someone hacks Emma's com link and begins to blackmail her.

A cat-and-mouse game in a 4000-word rapier of a short story where Emma's life and spirit are at stake and, to quote the Scottish play, she "cannot fly, /But, bear-like...must fight the course."